This is the first year we've done a CD. All
your tape will belong to us.
If you're curious about the font used on the
tape cover, it's called "Chubble," from the purveyor of all fine
fonts, Chank.
Every year, the name comes from some variant of
a song title. This year it's from the TMBG song.
It may take a while to get this all updated. So
keep coming back. [Note from January 2003: Okay, so it never got
finished. Alas.]
Poster
Children: This Town Needs
a Fire. Wanna know what they're saying? Visit here.
I didn't go read them until after putting it on the CD.
Fortunately, it's nothing awful. I saw them play at South by
Southwest in, um, 2000 I guess. They rocked, despite the leaky
tent and pouring rain. This whole CD (DDD) is really pretty
great, and it's a great leadoff song.
Brassy:
Work It Out. We got this CD (Got It Made) just in time for
our CD. It's a whole lotta fun. Not exactly Important Music, but
that's not really the highest priority in the world.
Jim
White: Handcuffed to a
Fence in Mississippi. This is off his second CD, No Such
Place. His gimmick is that he's a southern guy with country
influences, but produced by hip-hop producers and with lots of
influence along those lines. I guess it works. This is easily the
best song on the CD, at least on the first several listens..
Dan
Zaneswith Barbara
Brousal: Hello. This is the crazy-haired guy from the Del
Fuegos (remember them? Remember "Don't Run Wild"?). Anyway, he's
doing kids' music now and it's pretty great. There's a duet later
on with Suzanne Vega; interestingly, Zanes's first post-Del Fuegos
band was with Mitchell Froom, Vega's ex-husband and ex-producer.
Anyway, the album (Rocket Ship Beach) is lots of fun (Ella
loves it), and his new one (Family Dance Party) is good
too.
Allison Krauss & Gillian Welch:
I'll Fly Away. Boy, it was hard to get Oh Brother, Where Art
Thou down to just one song. But we did.
Old
97's: Question. A veteran
of our previous years' tapes, a not-entirely-'97s-ish song makes
it in off Satellite Rides. I hadn't even really noticed
this song until seeing them play the 9:30
Club in the fall, and, whaddya know?
It's an amazing, very nearly heartbreaking (but in a good
way) song.
Cake:
Meanwhile, Rick James… Okay, so it's not like Cake is really
stretching a great deal in this track off Comfort Eagle, or
really anywhere else on the album. So what? Does anyone else do
what they do even half as well? No.
Cibo
Matto: Spoon. Another
just-under-the-wire purchase, bought mere days before the final
track selections were made. The album (Stereotype A) is
buckets o' fun, and they were on Buffy. What more can you
want, really?
Walker
Kong: Pulitzer Prize.
Well, the link to Walker Kong's website is down right now, so I
don't know if it's still up or not. This album (There Goes The
Sun) is a pleasant surprise. The band started out as
this close to being a joke band, or at least a gimmick band
-- the first time I saw them was in a fairly-well-promoted show in
someone's bedroom. But it turns out they can write songs and play
them too (or at least they can now). And those strings you hear in
the song? Our friend Joe Kaiser wrote the parts and is playing the
cello!
They Might
Be Giants: Another First
Kiss. Someone asked me in a bar a few weeks ago if TMBG was still
around, apparently thinking Lincoln was about the end of
the road. Indeed they are, with the better-than-the-previous-album
Mink Car being released, endless touring, and a reannounced
release of their kids' CD No!. We all saw them at an
outdoor show (see pictures here
and here) and back in 2000, Ella even met
John Flansburgh. Ella had fun. This
song is a little out of character, but I think it's rather pretty.
And it provided the CD name, of course.
Doughty:
Real Love/It's Only Life. This is off a little self-released long
EP or short album called Skittish. It's all acoustic and
all quite good. This is a Mary J. Blige/Feelies medley.
Pete
Yorn. Closet. Saw him
open for...somebody. He was really good. Went to CD Cellar. Saw
Musicforthemorningafter for something like two bucks. Can't
say no. It's really good. As you have likely guessed from the
opening, "This is a song called Closet."
Firewater:
Get Out of My Head. Not to overstate things, but
Psychopharmacology is just too amazingly good to let go
past. It is just incredible. Prior albums (Get Off the
Cross...We Need the Wood for the Fire and The Ponzi
Scheme) are also great. And this is one of the best songs of
the year.
Built
to Spill: Car. I went to
see BtS in Seattle while there for work, essentially on an
impulse. I didn't really expect to enjoy it all that much, even
while liking the couple CDs we already had. After the show, I
updated our what-to-buy list to include "All Built to Spill," with
"Because they rock!" in the comments field. I've backed off the
focus a little, but they're still a great band. This is off their
live album.
12 Rods What Has Happened?
Ben Folds Annie Waits
Badly Drawn Boy Pissing in the
Wind
Aimee Mann Just Like Anyone
Emmylou Harriswith Neil
Young Sweet Old World
Jimmie Dale Gilmore with Emmylou
Harris One Endless Night
